Wednesday, November 04, 2015

If you want to get a handle on why there is so much ignorance about the transgender community (and how that ignorance was parlayed into an exploitation of fear which led to the loss in Houston), one can turn to the anti-gay hate group, Family Research Council.

I will spare you the vile crowing FRC president Tony Perkins made about the defeat of HERO in his email. Unfortunately, however, buoyed by that victory, he chose to push more ignorance about the transgender community via an attack on a transgender child in Chicago. And that's something I need to bring attention to:

In one Chicago school, girls are getting a lesson in anatomy their
parents never bargained for. In the latest chapter of madness at the
Department of Education, the federal government is ordering Township
High School to allow an adolescent boy full access of the girls' locker
room because he "feels" female. And by "full access," we mean the ability to strip down in the company of young girls and parade around nude.Using Title IX of the Civil Rights Act to justify this outrage, the
DOE is forcing impressionable girls to experience the fear and
discomfort of sharing facilities with a naked boy. Two years ago, when
the issue first surfaced, the school district rejected the idea
flat-out. Then, when the family filed a legal complaint, administrators
tried to accommodate the teenager by hanging a curtain in the locker
room where he could undress.

Even that was "too discriminatory." One of the boy's advocates, an
LGBT activist at the ACLU, insisted that he was being grossly
mistreated. "It's not voluntary; it's mandatory for her. It's one thing
to say to all the girls, 'You can choose if you want some extra
privacy,' but it's another thing to say, 'You, and you alone, must use
them.' That sends a pretty strong signal to her that she's not accepted
and the district does not see her as a girl."

Obviously, the district doesn't see "her" as a girl, because he isn't one!

Perkins makes the child out to be an exhibitionist and is deliberately omitting several important points about this situation. His piece clearly links to an article in U.S. News and World Reports which includes the following details Perkins chose to ignore, including:

The transgender student has not been identified and wants to remain
anonymous, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois,
which helped the girl's parents file a complaint more than two years
ago. She has been living as a girl since middle school, has changed her
legal name, obtained a passport as a female, received a diagnosis of
gender dysphoria and is taking female hormones, according to the
Department of Education's summary of its investigation. . . . The school district has allowed the student to use girls' restrooms and
participate in girls' athletics. She is identified as a female in the
district's computer system.

Gender dysphoria is a complicated condition which affects many children. It is not a mental illness and it has nothing to do sexual thrills of any shape or form. According to Medscape:

Gender dysphoria is a diagnosis that refers to people whose gender at birth is contrary to the one they identify with.

Gender treatment should involve a multidisciplinary team

People with gender dysphoria should have access to high-quality care without unnecessarily long waits

People with gender dysphoria have a right to psychotherapy and counseling as part of their treatment

Treatment should recognize the preferences, needs, and circumstances of the particular patient

Treatments that have been initiated for adolescents should continue into adulthood without interruption

More research should be encouraged, including research on
patient outcome and satisfaction with interventions and transition

This girl is no threat to other girls. For Perkins to be so flippant about a serious medical issue and imply that this child is an exhibitionist is simply inexcusable.

But very deliberate on his part. He could care less about what gender dsyphoria is or how it affects children. All that matters to him is that he continues the game of scaring the public by conjuring up images of "predators invading girls restrooms and showers."

It's sad but not surprising. Perkins and his group doesn't think that adult lgbts are actual people with families and normal lives. Why should they feel any different about lgbt children?

Houston voters struck down a non-discrimination ballot measure
Tuesday, delivering a blow to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
rights movement that had campaigned heavily for passage.vProp. 1, known as Houston's Equal Rights Ordinance, would
have barred discrimination on the basis of race, age, military status,
disability and 11 other categories in a variety of areas. (Religious
organizations and institutions would be exempt from the requirements.) It was HERO's protections on the basis of sexual orientation and
gender identity, however, that attracted the most attention and made the
ballot measure the center of the LGBT community's efforts this
election.

. . . Conservative activists -- who were heavily outspent by LGBT advocates
-- dubbed Prop. 1 the "bathroom ordinance" and adopted the slogan "No
men in women's bathrooms," playing up fears that passage could lead to
male sexual predators dressing up as women and entering women's
restrooms. This factually dishonest message proved to be incredibly effective: Many Houston voters seemed to think the measure was solely about access to restrooms and were unaware of the broader nondiscrimination protections in the measure. The most recent TV spot released by the anti-Prop. 1 coalition
Campaign for Houston, for example, showed a man entering a bathroom
stall with a young girl.

And that, my friends is what the anti-gay industry is all about. We hear them talk about Scriptures, morality, and values. But in the end, the only thing they know how to do is conjure fear and lies to stoke homophobia. And why should they stop? It's very effective.

In the 70s, former beauty pageant queen Anita Bryant led the charge to defeat a non-discrimination ordinance in Florida by claiming that gay men will recruit children. In the early 80s, discredited researcher Paul Cameron helped defeat one in Nebraska by falsely claiming that a gay man mutilated a young boy in a restroom. And these are just two of so many examples.

Throughout the annals of anti-gay politicking, you will always find a conjuring up of images of oversexed gay men, violent lesbians, confused bisexuals, and oddball transgender folks looking to convert, harm, or "recruit" children. It's their main bread and butter. Whether subtle or direct, that is always one talking point which will be in the center of almost every fight against any form of lgbt equality.

So it's like this. We ain't getting around it. I don't care what focus groups say or highly paid consultants say. We can't sidestep this. We can't ignore it. It won't bounce off our chests. It never does.

We have to address this as well as other bits of propaganda the anti-gay industry uses to exploit the fears of the public. And we had better figure out a way soon because as we all know via the fight for marriage equality, once they get a successful talking point, they tend to use it in other fights.

So expect to hear the mantra of "no men in women's bathrooms" again and in other parts of the country.

The "honeymoon period" generated by the complacency our community went under since we won marriage equality is over.

Personally, that's just fine with me because I've always believed that anything worth having is worth fighting tooth and nail for. So I have one message for the anti-gay right and their lies.Let's dance, bitches!!

About Me

Alvin McEwen is 46-year-old African-American gay man who resides in Columbia, SC.
McEwen's blog, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, and writings have been mentioned by Americablog.com, Goodasyou.org, People for the American Way, PageOneQ.com, The Washington Post, Raw Story, The Advocate, Media Matters for America, Crooksandliars.com, Thinkprogress.org, Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish, Melissa Harris-Perry, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, Newsweek, The Daily Beast, The Washington Blade, and Foxnews.com.
In addition, he is also a past contributor to Pam's House Blend,Justice For All, LGBTQ Nation, and Alternet.org. He is a present contributor to the Daily Kos and the Huffington Post,
He is the 2007 recipient of the Harriet Daniels Hancock Volunteer of the Year Award and the 2010 recipient of the Order of the Pink Palmetto from the SC Pride Movement as well as the 2009 recipient of the Audre Lorde/James Baldwin Civil Rights Activist Award from SC Black Pride. In addition, he is a three-time nominee of the Ed Madden Media Advocacy Award from SC Pride.